


feral waves to your mind

by iwillbeyourgoal



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-29
Updated: 2012-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-04 12:25:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwillbeyourgoal/pseuds/iwillbeyourgoal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And it starts<br/>Sometime around midnight<br/>Or at least that's when you lose yourself<br/>For a minute or two</p>
            </blockquote>





	feral waves to your mind

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the song "Sometime Around Midnight" by The Airborne Toxic Event.

I like bars alright. They’re not my favorite things but if I’m bored on a Saturday night, sure, I’ll frequent them. The occasional gay one with Jonathan for shits, being a wingman for Zayn as he tries to pick up girls. I’m not a particularly big fan of the entire population of Wales being pressed into a room about the size of my closet—but Niall, Zayn, and Liam had insisted on me getting out.

Tonight will be the first time I’ve left my (now far too empty and large) flat since The Event, as Niall so delicately referred to it while I’m around. It was frankly appalling, and I recognize that, but I feel no drive or ambition to leave or get off the couch. I don’t really feel much of anything these days.

To be fair, this bar isn’t all that bad. It has a live band instead of a DJ, and the champagne Liam bought me is pretty decent. I’m a little buzzed and the band is playing some song about forgetting yourself.

I’d like to do that.

I check the time and sigh. It’s 12:07, and it’ll be at least an hour before Zayn will even consider leaving. He does this thing where he likes to annoy the shit out of me every chance he gets. It’s endearing, really.

I lean against the wall, taking another swig of my drink. A pretty blonde girl with bright eyes smiles shyly at me and starts to approach him, but I smiled back, politely, and tell her ‘not tonight’, in so many words. Maybe a couple of years ago. But she’s not really catching me at the best time.

I scan the room after she walks away. My eyes move lazily over every couple, analyzing them, for lack of a better thing to do. I catch Niall’s eye as he grinds with a short brunette and wink at him. Dirty bastard.

As I moved on, my breath catches in my throat and the champagne almost works its way back up, burning more than it should.

Fuck.

Not tonight. Not now. Not here.

I’m looking at a tanned boy who seems to think that if he couldn’t be attached to this other boy’s backside, he could damn well try by grinding as close as he could to him. The other boy looks like a caveman, and I feel sick.

Louis seems to feel my eyes on the back of his neck (he always had a way with knowing if I was nearby, I had found it sweet then, but now I just wish I could melt into the wall) and turns around.

A scrolling marquee in my mind rolls by the top of my vision, saying GET OUT NOW WALK AWAY WHILE YOU STILL CAN, but following directions is apparently not on the menu, because I hold eye contact as long as he possibly could.

Louis is wearing the white jumper I bought him for his twenty-first. He didn’t even wear it that often when we were dating. It looked good on him; I knew it would when I saw it on the rack. Now it just seems like a giant, spectacular slap in the face.

Louis murmurs something in the other boy’s—the Neanderthal’s ear, and then started his way towards me. My feet urge me to move, to run, do anything but just fucking stand there, but I can’t. I just can’t.

I really wasn’t counting on seeing my ex tonight or anytime soon, really. I wonder if he knows how many sleepless nights he’s caused me, how many times I’ve had to crawl into bed with Liam because I hadn’t slept alone in so long.

He’s right in front of me now, and I think he says something like “how are you?”

As if he doesn’t fucking know.

The room is spinning, the lights and people and colors blend together in this carnival ride around me, and through my tunnel vision I can only see Louis (so just like the old days, then).

I manage to say something in response, I’m not sure what, because all I can focus on is his eyes and his lips and his hair and I can smell his cologne and I can see him lying naked in my arms like it was yesterday.

He’s smiling—how, how can he be smiling, when it was my life that revolved around him for eighteen months and it was him who told me he wasn’t seeing our future, wasn’t “feeling” us together and it was me who begged and pleaded for him to stay—

I’m glad I’m against a wall because if I wasn’t I think I might faint. He nods in this faux-awkward way and says he’s going to go now, and fucking good, too, because if he stays around me one more second I might vomit. These memories are too much for me to bear right now.

Our first kiss. A drunken game of truth or dare with the lads, and Niall laughs as he dares me to snog Louis. It’s hesitant at first, but we ease into it faster than two supposedly straight boys should, the rhythm building up too fluidly, and it’s only when Zayn coughs we break apart, blushing—

Our first time. Louis is all soft touches and quiet gestures, asking me time and time again is this okay is this okay tell me if it’s not, and the curl of our body afterwards is like two perfect circles entwined, like yin and yang—

Our first fight. I’m okay with coming out officially, but Louis is scared, is worried what people might think. A lamp gets broken as I throw my shoe at the wall in anger, and I end up crying in his arms—

I can’t deal with all this shit. I shove my way past him and I hear a faint “what did I do?” through the blood pounding in my head.

Walking over to a table surrounded by girls, I ask them if they’re going to finish the shots on the table. They say no and I down three of them. The tequila burns my throat, and I need it. I keep walking.

“What’s wrong, mate? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Liam jokes as I pass him on my way out.

He’s not too far wrong.

I raise a hand to my cheek and realize I’m crying, hard. I’m vaguely aware that the people outside the bar are staring at me, but I’m too drunk to care. My world is falling around me, it seems, and Louis is just going to fuck another guy tonight.

Maybe I don’t need to lose myself. Maybe I already have.


End file.
